Help Translating Japanese

Hello all,
I found this note with stamps attached to the bottom in my Grandmother's collection. I am really curious as to what this note says. Google translate was no help. Could anyone help translate?
Thanks,
Jane

Hi Jane,

Here's what the text says:

Dear all friends in Des Moines,
You live in Iowa close to Chicago in the middle of the states.
Where I live, Koufu Yamanashi which also has a name for "Switzerland in japan" after its spectacular views we have, is close to Tokyo and in the middle of Japan.
I studied about Chicago in school and do know a little bit about it. Have you been there already?
I would like to enclose a bookmark or postcard, if I [have] spare. But I am including 12 different stamps from Japan for you to enjoy.
Looking forward to hearing from you again.

Youshimura (That's a surname, the first name kanji has too many possibilities, so I can't be certain of it).
Most likely first name is Yoshikou or Yoshihiro
This is where I hate kanji. ><
-S

Note the "[have]" is added by me, the literal translation is otherwise clunky.
Also, it's a note probably from a grade school kid, maybe around 4th or 5th grade. It's not very advanced writing (in terms of the fact they use a ton of hiragana and only a few simple kanji), aside from their name which makes a lot of sense. (Every kid knows how to write their name).

Thank you so much! That was incredibly helpful. It sounds like a pen pal letter. So cute!

My pleasure.

BTW, the oldest of the stamps on here seems to be the butterfly 75 yen. The others are from around the 50's (as noted on the 5 yen whale stamp... 1957).
So probably this letter was sent late 60's, early 70's.

Great pen pal letter.
Also note how the low quality note paper has toned, the acids in the note paper have also damaged the stamps themselves. A good example on why we should not use low quality paper around our stamps. Since these are not rare stamps, I would keep the stamps mounted on the letter as a family heirloom.
Don

Good advice, Don, I think I will do that.

Thanks again, S! That time period sounds about right for her collection. I appreciate you helping to enrich my family history. It may be a letter from someone I never knew, but it's still a great addition to the collection.

Jane

Nice letter. Thanks for sharing.

Hi Jane, this is a wonderful memory ! I am very happy that you have such a wonderful memory from Japan !

The address of the sender is 16 Suimon-cho, Kofu city (Yamanashi prefecture). The area, Suimon-cho, does not exist any more as it seems to be merged with surrounding areas at around 1962 (Showa 37). Also observing that the latest date on the legible cancellation is November Showa 31 (=1956), and (as mentioned by ClassicPhilatelist) the unused new year's stamp of 1957 is included, it is very likely that this letter was sent between 1957 and 1962 or so.

As for the given name, it is very likely to be pronounced as

- Yoshihiro, or
- Yoshimasa, or
- Yoshikimi,

the first two candidates more likely than the third one.

There are so many ways to pronounce them (again, as mentioned by ClassicPhilatelist); the second character itself would be very likely to be pronounced as "kou" when it appears as the first character of the word, but when it is used as the second character in a given name, I would reckon to be pronounced as "hiro" or "masa". Yes, very complicated and many exceptions do exist ... even native Japanese people hate Kanji ;-)

- Hironobu

ClassicPhilatelist, I can see from your translation that our disagreement in that other thread was due to not understanding each other's terminology. "Koufu" and "Yoshikou" clearly show that you do in fact recognize the need to mark what I (and every elementary textbook on Japanese that I've ever read) call "long vowels" in Japanese. I don't care whether you romanize Japanese "long o" as ô, ou, or oo (I've used all three), but when it's romanized as a simple "o", as is so often the case, it's misleading, especially to someone who is still just learning the language. That was my complaint. If my entry ticket to the temple in Kamakura has said "Koufuku-in" rather than "Kofuku-in", I would have had no reason to complain. Similarly, I would have found it problematic if you had instead written "Kofu" and "Yoshiko" (the latter especially so, since I would have assumed from it that the writer was female).

Incidentally, I tend to use "ô" and avoid "ou" and "oo" in venues where I expect most of the readers to be unacquainted with the pronunciation of Japanese, since I assume that they will be misinterpreted as as the vowels of "house" and "book".

I apologize again for my earlier rudeness, but do you get what I'm saying?

In any event, I feel that I should point out that there are 13 stamps, and the letter says the same. Like you, I initially thought that the letter said "12", but when I noticed that there were actually 13 stamps, I looked at the letter more closely and saw that the bottom stroke of the "3" kanji was written so close to the kanji below it that it was not readily visible.

Hi again Jane,

As the sender's given name (in this combination of Kanji characters) is not very common in Japan, I've done a quick search on the Web and found two person, whose address is both in Yamanashi prefecture, which does match the prefecture in his original address.

Also a search for his name (Family + Given name) on a search engine site for Japanese names give only one person with this name !

http://douseidoumei.com/dousei/d_dou/00/0493.htm

(look for "4921843" in the page, and you'll find "1" in the rightmost column, mentioning there is only one entry in this database thus his name is unique. FYI, my name is also unique in Japan :-) )

Therefore it seems be not impossible to identify the sweet boy who kindly sent this letter to your family. Amazing indeed.

- Hironobu

Research has changed; this from my correspondent, Nels Winkless:


Cheers,

/s/ ikeyPikey